Scan&Translate Free is a iPhone app which can scan text from various sources and translate it into 70 different languages with voice support. By grabbing text we mean it can scan text from various sources like printed books, signs, instructions, articles, etc. Once you have scanned the text, you can translate it to any of the given 70 languages. Most of the languages also have voice support where the converted text can be read out loud to you.
The interface of the app is pretty easy to understand. When you first launch the app, you get a screen like shown in the below screenshot. Here on the home page you can see four icons namely camera, gallery, history and settings.
- Camera icon: lets you scan text from various sources like books, articles, etc. using the inbuilt camera of the phone.
- Gallery icon: will let you select already existing text or picture containing text and the app will grab all the text from the picture.
- History icon: will show you all the translated text files in one place,
- Settings icon: does not allow you to make much changes apart from changing the preferred OCR language.
When you are inside the history icon, you will be able to see all the translations that you have done so far, listed for you. At the top right hand corner of this screen you will see a pen icon. This icon will give you two options, to either select and delete translation you do not want anymore or rename them.
Once you select the text to be translated either by scanning or selecting a image from your photo gallery, you will proceed to the translation screen which will look like the screenshot below.
As you can see, the screen is divided into two parts. The top section is for the text that you selected or scanned and the bottom part is for the translated text. Before you can translate, you will be asked to select the output language or the language in which you want your text to be translated. Once that is done, tap on the translate button at the center of the screen. Now you will be shown the translated text at the bottom part of the screen.
Also, you can see three icons at the bottom of this page. The first voice icon when pressed will read out the translated text out loud to you. The second image icon will show you the image of the original text. Third sharing icon will let you share this translation through Twitter, Facebook, Email, Dropbox or you can also copy the translation and paste it into any app which supports text like messages, Whatsapp, etc. The sharing screen is shown in the below screenshot.
Final Note:
Scan&Translate free is a nice app, which can come in handy in a lot of situations. Like if you are visiting another country and are having difficulty reading signs, instructions, etc. The app does have ads on the screen, as well as pop up adds when you switch pages, but they don’t bother much. Rather the annoying part for me was, every time I open the app, there is a pop up to rate the app. Even when you click on the later button, it just keeps on popping up.
Overall, I think the app is awesome and the best part is the voice part, where the translated text is read out for you. It is definitely worth a try.
